Cohesion and Readiness in Gender-Integrated Combat Service Support Units: The Impact of Acceptance of Women and Gender Ratio

Abstract

Cohesion, combat readiness and acceptance of women were examined among male and female junior enlisted soldiers and male noncommissioned officers (NCOs) in 19 combat service support companies. The proportion of junior enlisted females in each company was negatively correlated with mean cohesion and readiness scores for junior enlisted males. The proportion of NCO females was significantly correlated with the proportion of soldiers who said they did not expect to deploy with their units, which in turn was negatively correlated with cohesion for male NCOs. For junior enlisted males, results indicated that cohesion and combat readiness increased with increased acceptance of women, but decreased as the proportion of females in the unit increased. Furthermore, acceptance of women decreased as the proportion of females in the unit increased. The results are interpreted in the light of two competing hypotheses regarding minority proportional representation-the tokenism hypothesis and the minority-proportion discrimination hypothesis.